Microsoft outage disrupts Outlook and Teams in 74 countries
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on France 24 and MyJoyOnline
A global Microsoft outage disrupted Outlook, Teams and Copilot for tens of thousands of users in 74 countries and territories. Reports of problems with Outlook reached nearly 140,000 at their peak on Thursday around 18:00 GMT. Microsoft cited unavailable servers and overloaded infrastructure, while recovery remained uncertain, according to France 24.
Reports of Outlook problems reached nearly 140,000 worldwide on Thursday around 18:00 GMT, according to monitoring site Downdetector. Microsoft said some servers had suddenly become unavailable, putting pressure on the remaining systems. The company said it was continuing efforts to restore its services.
The disruptions prevented some users from accessing files or calendar information. Copilot was also affected. Microsoft said, however, that email and online meetings remained broadly functional. The group warned that services already restored could become unavailable again and that customers in all regions could be affected.
The incident also affected OpenAI and Anthropic, two artificial intelligence companies that use Microsoft infrastructure. OpenAI said it was investigating a problem connecting to the group’s services, which prevented some of its tools from functioning normally. Electric truck maker Workhorse Group also postponed the publication of its quarterly results, initially scheduled for 12 November, to 16 November, citing disruptions to its operations caused by the outage.
Microsoft had already struggled to restore its Azure cloud platform the previous month after an interruption that affected its productivity tools and several companies worldwide.
